import nntplib
import string

SERVER = "news.spam.egg"
GROUP  = "comp.lang.python" 
AUTHOR = "fredrik@pythonware.com" # eff-bots human alias

# connect to server
server = nntplib.NNTP(SERVER)

# choose a newsgroup
resp, count, first, last, name = server.group(GROUP)
print "count", "=>", count
print "range", "=>", first, last

# list all items on the server
resp, items = server.xover(first, last)

# extract some statistics
authors = {}
subjects = {}
for id, subject, author, date, message_id, references, size, lines in items:
    authors[author] = None
    if subject[:4] == "Re: ":
        subject = subject[4:]
    subjects[subject] = None
    if string.find(author, AUTHOR) >= 0:
        print id, subject
    
print "authors", "=>", len(authors)
print "subjects", "=>", len(subjects)

## count => 607
## range => 57179 57971
## 57474 Three decades of Python!
## ...
## 57477 More Python books coming...
## authors => 257
## subjects => 200
